Lets see, lets just say you wanted to build a watch that would so incredibly obviously scream "I AM A BOMB" to even the most unsophisticated and uneducated idiot on the planet it would look.... pretty much like what they guy was wearing... not surprised he got detained. Hope he enjoyed the cavity search.... and maybe that's what he was after all along.

I read about this a few days ago and at the time though that the TSA is over reacting.I hate how difficult it is to travel with your possessions.This is the first time i have seen a picture of the watch.I am forced to ask WTF was he thinking.If I saw that watch I would think the same thing...bomb.This guy is a idiot.

Yup, just googled the pic instead of working through all the farking scripts on NoScript.

The comments critical of the TSA on this (including in the article) are asinine. If this HAD been some kind of device that released gas or something, and the man was allowed through security, the TSA critics would then switch to blasting the security agents for not realizing the guy was nuts and the device was CLEARLY some kind of weapon. Then they'd go on and on about searching kids and old ladies and taking nail clippers away while this kind of shiat gets through yadda yadda yadda...

Performance art? Nah, that would have been if he stood up on the plane with his hand on the switch and 50 passengers beat him to death and the coroner said oh, it's only a watch, it wasn't attached to anything, give him a round of applause.

lemortede:I read about this a few days ago and at the time though that the TSA is over reacting.I hate how difficult it is to travel with your possessions.This is the first time i have seen a picture of the watch.I am forced to ask WTF was he thinking.If I saw that watch I would think the same thing...bomb.This guy is a idiot.

Yeah, gotta agree with you there. It's almost so bomb-like as to be unlikely to be a bomb, like any terrorist with half a brain would at least try to disguise it a bit.

/Though any terrorist with half a brain wouldn't be a terrorist in the first place.

lordjupiter:BigLuca: 22 javascripts for one crappy local news rag? No thanks.

Yup, just googled the pic instead of working through all the farking scripts on NoScript.

The comments critical of the TSA on this (including in the article) are asinine. If this HAD been some kind of device that released gas or something, and the man was allowed through security, the TSA critics would then switch to blasting the security agents for not realizing the guy was nuts and the device was CLEARLY some kind of weapon. Then they'd go on and on about searching kids and old ladies and taking nail clippers away while this kind of shiat gets through yadda yadda yadda...

IMO

Exactly.

I consider the backscatter machines a stupid waste of money, and the TSA to be largely security theater, but if they are going to be there and hired to do security then there is no reason they shouldn't err on the side of caution when they see something suspicious.

Also I enjoy the fact that we have a thread going about how much respect soldiers deserve and another thread going on about how retarded all the TSA agents are, a very large percentage of which are ex-military. Its a rather amusing inconsistency.

It's a free country, until you decide to do something different than what everyone else is doing. Then it VERY quickly stops being a free country. Like, if you're gay it doesn't feel like a free country, or if you're a swinger, or if you like to dress strangely, or have a mohawk, or are brown-skinned. In any of those cases, it doesn't feel very free at all. But it's a free country.

Freedom to do what pleases the government and makes everyone around you comfortable is granted in even the most oppressive gulags in the world. The defining "free" moment is when you can zig while everyone else zags, and nobody is harmed, not even you.

Fizpez:Lets see, lets just say you wanted to build a watch that would so incredibly obviously scream "I AM A BOMB" to even the most unsophisticated and uneducated idiot on the planet it would look.... pretty much like what they guy was wearing... not surprised he got detained. Hope he enjoyed the cavity search.... and maybe that's what he was after all along.

But the TSA guys aren't the most unsophisticated and uneducated idiots on the planet. They are highly trained, elite law enforcement agents who are uniquely qualified to recognize hand-held explosive devices that pose a risk to air...

OK, I just can't keep typing that without laughing out loud, and now my dog is looking at me funny.

ChaoticLimbs:It's a free country, until you decide to do something different than what everyone else is doing. Then it VERY quickly stops being a free country. Like, if you're gay it doesn't feel like a free country, or if you're a swinger, or if you like to dress strangely, or have a mohawk, or are brown-skinned. In any of those cases, it doesn't feel very free at all. But it's a free country.

Freedom to do what pleases the government and makes everyone around you comfortable is granted in even the most oppressive gulags in the world. The defining "free" moment is when you can zig while everyone else zags, and nobody is harmed, not even you.

Lemme pose this for you...I make a piece of art that looks like a suicide vest, I certify it with the tsa that it is harmless and they let me on a plane, then I jump up and show everyone on the plane in mid air and start screaming that I am a terrorist and I am going to blow up the plane if they dont change course to syria........

If it looks dangerous it can be used to intimidate or control a flight crew.

If I were going to rob a bookie because there was this huge diamond in town.......

LesterB:Smackledorfer: all the TSA agents are, a very large percentage of which are ex-military.

[citation needed.png]

The Philly airport screeners who robbed me in 2000 at the checkpoint were hired on as TSA agents. Including the guy with the gang tattoos. If I were ex military I would not sign on for an $8 an hour job fondling dood junk for hours every day.

Is something "clearly an explosive device" simply because you don't know what it is? The TSA has all sorts of fancy, expensive magic tools to test for explosives. If they do find a suspicious looking electronic device such as this, protocol should be to detain the person long enough to test the object, then to let him go if it passed the test.

As far as I know, it is not against the law to fly with something that looks weird.

Oh, and if it's "stupid" to wear a non-dangerous watch which doesn't appear dangerous except to the most undereducated buffoons known to man, then contained within the statement that it is stupid is the tacit admission that policing is done by fools, and that the rules are arbitrary, and that there is so much grey area around the rules that they aren't rules at all, at least, not the kind that protect anyone from anything. You would have to admit that such a society would be adequately described by the following : " That which is not prohibited is mandatory, and for all exceptions there is a permit, license, or other form of controls."

If we prohibit dangerous items, items which are crafted to appear dangerous, OR items that the policeman doesn't understand, shouldn't we endeavor to choose policemen who are understanding of the fundamentals of our society? If they are to judge harmless electronic devices from dangerous ones, shouldn't they understand that fuses are not incendiaries or explosives? Shouldn't they know that toggle switches are not dangerous? Why do we tolerate being policed by undereducated thugs and then call this a free country?

It's not a bomb look-alike. It's an electronics look-alike, and home-crafting of electronics only implies danger in the minds of people who live within a technological society but deliberately remain completely ignorant of the very technology that separates humans from apes. People who know nothing of technology are ape parasites on a technological society, and their rules, their judgements, and their opinions on technology should be ridiculed as loudly as possible and as openly as is practical.

Idiocracy was right. This is an idiocracy, a society governed by idiots, and it's a democracy, which means those idiots are all around you.

Also I enjoy the fact that we have a thread going about how much respect soldiers deserve and another thread going on about how retarded all the TSA agents are, a very large percentage of which are ex-military. Its a rather amusing inconsistency.

No they aren't - like all agencies vets are preference hires, but they don't make up "a very large percentage". Most are right off the street like a lot of Federal hires only give less training than other Fed law enforcement.

It's worse during the holidays when the TSA requests other civilan employees of DHS to help out. Those are largely volunteers with little or no training who do it for some extra cash for the holidays.

/fun little fact: TSA employees get an annual uniform allowance that is greater than the lifetime allowance for a Marine Lieutenant. They are expected to do more dry cleaning at retail prices of dress shirts I guess, but $446/year? I don't wear suits or dress shirts every day but that seems excessive.